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Pothole-related breakdowns increases, says RAC

Date:
01 August 2016
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Author: Daniel Puddicombe

The quality of British roads has deteriorated over the last 10 years, new research by the RAC has suggested.

RAC compared the percentage of the breakdown company's pothole-related call-outs to other types of breakdowns alongside rainfall and frost data and found there was a 125% increase from 2006 to 2016 in the number of vehicle breakdowns which were down to poor road surfaces.

In the year ending June 2006, breakdowns related to potholes represented an average of 0.4% of all call-outs, however at the end of the 12 months to June 2016 this percentage rose to 0.9%.

The RAC's analysis also found there was a 120% rise in the number of breakdowns related to potholes between 2007 and 2009, equivalent to 1.1% of all breakdowns, while a quarterly high figure of 1.6% was recorded at the end of March 2009 - a figure which was not topped until the first two quarters of 2013.

"Our analysis paints a very disappointing picture which unequivocally confirms what most road users already know, which is that the condition of our local roads has deteriorated drastically in the last decade," said RAC chief engineer David Bizley. "This analysis suggests that the quality of the UK's roads suffered a steady decline from the start of 2007 through to the end of 2009, presumably due to lack of investment in maintenance and resurfacing during worsening economic times."

"Since then, injections of short-term funding have addressed the immediate aftermath of periods of extreme weather but have not been sufficient to tackle the underlying problem," he added.

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